2009 Burlington, Vermont mayoral election
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Kiss: 30–40% 40–50% 50–60% 60–70% 70–80% Wright: 50–60% 60–70% Montroll: 30–40% 40–50% | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Elections in Vermont |
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The 2009 Burlington mayoral election was the second mayoral election since the city's 2005 change to instant-runoff voting (IRV), also known as ranked-choice voting (RCV), after the 2006 mayoral election. In the 2009 election, incumbent Burlington mayor (Bob Kiss) won reelection as a member of the Vermont Progressive Party, defeating Kurt Wright in the final round with 48% of the vote (51.5% excluding exhausted ballots).
The election created controversy as a result of several election pathologies. Unlike the city's first IRV election three years prior, Kiss was neither the plurality winner nor the majority-preferred candidate (Democrat Andy Montroll), and Kiss was declared winner as a result of 750 votes cast against his candidacy (ranking him last). The election is a well-known example of a center squeeze, a kind of spoiler effect in IRV that favors more-extreme candidates over more-moderate ones.
The controversy surrounding the election ended in a successful 2010 citizen's initiative which repealed IRV by a vote of 52% to 48%.